Uber sued for wrongful death of six-year-old girl on New Year's Eve

The family of a girl killed while in a San Francisco crosswalk on New Year's Eve is suing the Internet ride-service company Uber.

Attorney Christopher Dolan is filing a wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of the family of Sofia Liu in San Francisco Superior Court on Monday.

The suit claims Uber is responsible for the girl's death as she was struck while crossing the street along with her mother and brother in the city's Tenderloin neighborhood.

Police arrested then-Uber driver, 57-year-old Syed Muzaffar of Union City. He is facing charges of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence and failure to yield to pedestrians in a crosswalk.

Uber says in a statement that Muzaffar was not on the job at the time of the accident. His account was deactivated after the crash.

Earlier in January, Uber slashed its prices for its low-cost service, UberX, in some US cities.

The prices have been cut-down in 16 cities out of 23 where it is offered in the US, to make it more competitive with other services. The cities included are Atlanta, Baltimore, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Nashville, Orange County, Phoenix, Sacramento, San Francisco, Seattle, and Tucson.

At some places, the prices will be slashed by up to 30 percent, according to Travis Kalanick, CEO of Uber. For instance, the UberX service will drop by 30 percent in Orange County followed by San Francisco with 20 percent and others who will see the cuts by up to 12 percent.

(Written with agency inputs)